The sun slowly filled the canyon as we headed back out the way we had come.

The rising morning sun

Time for the prairie dogs to rise as well.

We took a short detour through the town of Cisco... not quite a ghost town but with many old-time, run-down, clearly abandoned buildings.

Back in Fruita, we stopped into the Dinosaur Journey museum. It was meant more as interactive exhibits for kids, but we enjoyed it as well.

Dino car!

A model of a T-rex head. Yup, he could eat me easily in one bite.

Allosaurus had three fingers, each with a sharp claw, curved to prevent the escape of struggling prey.

These represent animals ranging from 7 to 38 feet long. Adults weighed 2,000 to 3,000 pounds.

With a height of 18 feet 2 inches, this is less than half the total height of the Brachiosaur.

An animated Dilophosaurus squirted water at kids.

Velociraptors were efficient, aggressive predators... but they were actually rather small. This reconstruction is an adult.

Ooooh... not just skulls, but a whole lair of them!

Sarcosuchus: this super croc lived around 112 million years ago. It grew up to 38 feet long and weighed 17,500 pounds, eating fish and small swamp dinosaurs. That being said, it is NOT the biggest crocodylian that ever lived though.

Fruitadens is the smallest fruit-eating dinosaur in the world! Adults only weighed about 1 pound.

The oldest known mammal tracks in the world! How could I resist given my -est fetish?... especially when made by rat-like animals!

This was a box of heart sizes from different animals... from a hummingbird (which was the size of a pin hole) to a Brachiosaur (which we could easy crawl into). Regans fist was bigger than the average human heart...

... mine was MUCH smaller. Hmmm... it does kinda reflect in our personalities! Maybe someday my heart will grow several sizes, like the Grinch's eventually did.

A Robber fly with victim... how little time has changed!

We got back on the road and drove for a while. We stopped in the city of Rifle for lunch... yes, just because of the cool name. We stopped by the visitor center and were recommended several different places to eat. In continuing with the theme, we chose Shooters. Numerous guns covered the small restaurant's walls.

The Rifle visitor center

An adult Golden Eagle, a Bald Eagle and a young Golden Eagle. While we've seen many vultures on this trip, we haven't seen a single eagle... which is unusual since I used to see them all the time. Even in Boulder, the birds of prey have seemed to vanish.

The entertaining theme

A rifle hanging above the coffee pot

The salt and pepper shakers were even in the shapes of shotgun shells.

And at the bottom of the menu, a short Chrisitan prayer

There were out of 'flapjacks' so we had to make due with French Toast instead.

We walked along the main street a bit but was quite hot and we were tired. Also, a uniformed police officer kept walking the streets, almost as if waiting for one of us tourists to start getting rowdy. It felt more creepy than safe.

The chrming old buildings

So we headed back to the car and bee-lined it back to Boulder. It was sprinkling as we drove into town and a bit cooler.

Passing through stunning Glenwood Canyon, with opposing traffic on the raised lanes to the left and a train speeding by on the right

The Colorado River